The money is great but being free is priceless

Colin Stagg, falsely accused of murdering Rachel Nickell, tells today how he feels no sympathy for Barry George because of his history of stalking vulnerable women. Mr Stagg, who has just been awarded more than £700,000 for wrongful arrest and prosecution, moved to distance himself from Mr George - acquitted last month of murdering TV star Jill Dando.

Mr Stagg, 45, said: "I do feel sorry for George because he has been behind bars all these years when he was clearly not guilty on the evidence. But I can feel no sympathy for the man himself because he is a serial stalker of women who has also admitted attempted rape.

"I can understand police pointing the finger at him because of his previous conviction. But he's not like me. I had never had a single conviction until police accused me of murdering Rachel Nickell. There's a big difference between me and Barry George."

Mr Stagg spent a year in jail awaiting trial for the 1992 murder of Ms Nickell, who was stabbed 49 times as her two-year-old son Alex looked on. He was acquitted in 1994 but the cloud of suspicion hung over him until a second man, Robert Napper, who stands trial in November, was charged with the murder last year.

Yesterday the Standard revealed that Mr Stagg had finally won a long legal battle with the Home Office for £700,000 compensation, He likened the sum - far larger than any previous award for wrongful arrest - to winning the Lottery. For years he was unable to shake off the stigma of being accused of murdering Ms Nickell, 23, a former part-time model, as she walked across Wimbledon Common.

There has been speculation that Mr George is now in line for a similar or even larger sum, having spent eight years in jail and endured two criminal trials for a crime he did not commit. Mr George, who told a Sunday newspaper last month he could not have shot Ms Dando on her doorstep in Fulham because he was stalking another woman at the time, is likely to face the same uphill battle in convincing the public of his complete innocence.

Mr Stagg will use his £700,000 to get on with the rest of his life. He has told how he now plans to travel abroad for the first time - taking his beloved dog Jess with him. He will also buy the council maisonette in which he has lived for the past 40 years, while his relationship with his girlfriend Terri Marchant, a mother of four and childhood friend, has begun to blossom. He has had her name, Teresa, and a heart tattooed on his right arm while she has had a tattoo and his name, Colin, drawn above her left breast, over her own heart.

Mr Stagg, speaking from his home in Roehampton, where he has remained despite years of antagonism, told the Evening Standard: "The compensation hasn't sunk in yet. I got the call yesterday but I'm still doing the same things. I woke up this morning as usual at four o'clock to take the dog for a walk, I did a bit of shopping and now I plan to take the dog for her second walk.

"I would still like to have an apology from the Met but at the end of the day they never apologise for getting anything wrong."

Sitting in his living room and followed everywhere by a BBC film crew making a fly-on-the-wall documentary about his life, Mr Stagg dismisses his new-found popularity. "I would rather be famous for playing the guitar," he declared. "Or for being Eric Clapton's son or something."

His neighbours now cheer him in the street. "I always knew you weren't guilty," shouted Patricia Vieira, 25, a childminder and mother-of-two, as Mr Stagg entered his flat after a visit with the legal team that negotiated his record payout. Later she declared: "I have lived above him for 10 years and we wouldn't have done that if he had done anything wrong. The people who lived there before us moved out because of him. But he's a nice guy and I have never had any problems with him."

Another local, retired university maths lecturer Tom Frank, 68, said: "I knew Colin well enough to know he hadn't done anything. He has got what he deserves. he has had a rough time. Police wanted the results quickly and that prejudiced their judgment."

With his new-found wealth, Mr Stagg, who has never been able to hold down a job since being arrested in 1993, will consider starting his own business, possibly as a landscape gardener. "The best thing is being able to get off the dole," he said. "I am a proud man who has never been afraid of work but nobody in the countless interviews I have attended has wanted to take me on. Now I can work and I've got some small business ideas."

For the moment he plans to put a new kitchen and bathroom in his maisonette and fulfil a promise he made to himself last year - when compensation was first discussed - to put in mirrors across the length of one wall in a bedroom he has converted into a gym.

Stagg will buy the council house where he was brought up with his three brothers and sister but that will still leave him a sizeable sum in reserve. His next task will be to buy a car large enough to travel across Europe for some months with 12-year-old Jess at his side. But first he must apply for a passport for himself and the correct paperwork for his pet.

"I have never been abroad. Hopefully, I will now have a nice holiday with the money," he said in his softly spoken, almost hesitant voice. "I would love to go across the Channel. There's so much culture to see. The civilisations of ancient Rome and Greece; the cathedral at Chartres; the renaissance city of Florence. I might go for a few months.

"I have always had a dream of touring Europe and now I can live that dream. I couldn't have gone before anyway because I never would have left Jess but with new rules on taking pets, she can come, too. We won't stay anywhere fancy, just simple B&Bs and hotels and if they won't take pets, we will just sleep in the car.

"My last car died on me so I will probably get a 4x4 now. Not a new one, however - that might get scratched around here."

Mr Stagg has missed out on having a family of his own - a factor picked up on by Lord Brennan QC who granted the award - but he has found happiness with Ms Marchant, whom he has known since childhood, but whom he started seeing regularly only a couple of years ago after she tracked him down on Facebook.

He visits her at her home in Farnham, Hampshire, while she regularly drives up to see him in Roehampton. The his-and-hers tattoos are an obvious sign of their affection but they have no plans to marry. "I have done that already," said Mr Stagg in reference to his first - and only - disastrous marriage.

Ms Marchant, speaking from her home, told the Standard: "We are just very happy with each other. We are as happy together now as we have ever been. He is just getting this whole business out of the way and then we'll see where it takes us. He wants to get a cottage somewhere to rent where we can all go to get away from it - me, Jess, my kids. That is the first thing he wants to do."

There has been anger at the size of the payout to Mr Stagg with one Tory MP, Patrick Mercer, complaining today: "I do wonder where we are getting figures like this from when servicemen injured on the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan are getting nothing close to this amount."

While Mr Stagg will collect £706,000 from the Home Office, Miss Nickell's son Alex, now18, who witnessed his mother's brutal murder, received £90,000 for trauma and loss of the services of a mother. Mr Mercer said: "There is a total imbalance between the payout for the indirect victim of the crime, in this case Rachel's son, and the payout Mr Stagg received."

Even Mr Stagg has been taken aback by the size of the award despite the years of hell he has been dragged through. "I never expected I would get that much," he said. "I thought maybe it would be £30,000 or £50,000 which would have been just enough to clear the debts.

"I would rather have the apologies from the people who put me down - the police, the public and some of the neighbours. The main thing I wanted was an apology for being blamed for something I didn't do."

After 16 years of suspicion and accusation, he is living a normal life again. He has even started taking his dog for walks on Wimbledon Common once more, no longer fearful of the terrible stares such a harmless stroll once attracted.

What the compensation will buy him is the chance to do the truly normal things like go to the shops, his head held high.

"I can afford to do anything I want to now, "explained Mr Stagg. "I don't just means in terms of money. I just feel I am finally free at last."